Mar 14 2012
I’ve been reading genre fiction (romance, mystery, SFF) for a very long time, but I didn’t become aware of fan fiction as a category of writing, much less its role in creating community, until I found internet blogs about fiction writing. Back when I was reading mystery blogs regularly, I ran across a ranting post [...]
Jan 3 2012
Maili suggested I do a prediction of the 2012 romance genre, but those books have already been bought, mostly. Here’s what I would like to see: More diversity, not just in the characters, but in the settings. I’m iffy on wanting more steampunk. Too many people slap an iron bustle in a book and throw [...]
Dec 6 2011
A couple of weeks ago the Brookings Register ran an article titled “Not your mother’s romance novel.” The article spoke to two women who have recently become interested in romances. Two women who had not read older romances, but had formed negative opinions regarding those older romances: Gill said she believes the romance genre of [...]
Jul 11 2011
Sharon sent me this link to an NPR review of Erica Jong’s collection of stories called “Sugar in My Bowl”. Various female authors have contributed essays on the topic of sex and sexual fantasy. Liz Smith, of gossip column fame, contributes a tale of losing her virginity to her cousin. (Intriguingly, the family connection didn’t [...]
Jun 1 2011
Yesterday was hate on romance readers day. I actually read one of these a week, if not more frequently, and generally don’t share them because what is the point, right? It is culturally acceptable to repudiate the romance genre and romance readers. From columnist, Kimberly Sayer-Giles, we have the “romance as pornography” meme*; Russell Moore [...]
Oct 26 2010
Last week, Robin wrote a great piece on the topic of originality in fiction. There are pretty much no ideas that haven’t already been expressed but the one thing that distinguishes one work of fiction from another is voice. Yet, voice is something that is hard to define. It’s ephemeral. It is, from a definitional [...]
Oct 19 2010
Genre fiction rides a thin line between consistent recognizability and appealing freshness. Often referred to as "a narrative archetype," the form of genre fiction is often denigrated as "formulaic" and derivative (Pam Regis, A Natural History of The Romance Novel, 23). In truth, there has to be something fundamental and formalistic that binds a group [...]
Sep 7 2010
Publishers Weekly is one of the more democratic mainstream review publications and has been reviewing romance for quite some time. PW has decided to eliminate the mass market review section and replace it with dedicated genre sections. Romance will have its very own space edited by Rose Fox, a journalist who reads and appreciates romance. [...]
Dec 29 2009
Obviously we have a new look and feel to Dear Author. The design work was completed by Maili and it is based off a premium theme from WooThemes. Just the Web did some additional coding work. We’ve developed a couple of informational pages: For Readers/For Authors. Those are both in the development stage. One of [...]
Dec 10 2009
Over at Smart Bitches I noticed that there is an ebook sale at eHarlequin today. Using the code CUTINHALF, you will receive 50% off any ebook in the eHarlequin library. I think that they have over 2,000 ebooks for sale. I don’t have a good list for you to buy but I can provide some [...]
Nov 11 2009
Generation Y women like social networking and sharing their thoughts on the products that they buy. This is, apparently, news. It is not something that ebook manufacturers have caught on yet, though. The current ebook reader enthusiast is a 47-year-old married man with a household income in excess of 6 figures. But! researchers believe that [...]
Nov 5 2009
Keishon, avidbookreader.com, linked to a discussion at copyblogger which debated whether the theorem that talented authors write badly when they are trying to express an idea and conversely write well when they are trying to touch an audience. Now, the qualification in the copyblogger post is the term “talented” which can have a whole gamut [...]
Oct 13 2009
In reading reviews of Tessa Dare’s book, Goddess of the Hunt, and of Louisa Edwards‘, Can’t Stand the Heat, I noticed there were often comments about the female protagonists, or heroines, of the stories as not being very likeable. I know I struggled with Miranda, the heroine in Can’t Stand the Heat. I thought I [...]
Sep 26 2009
In today’s First Page, Laura Kinsale brought up a question in the comments regarding unfamiliar terms in a story. I have a question, as a writer, about one of the comments. This isn’t a loaded question, or any sort of commentary on this excerpt itself, it’s input for me. DS said I had to look [...]
Aug 25 2009
see more Lolcats and funny pictures Janet: Reading through the comments on the Dear Author Golden Era poll, they seem to reflect the split in the voting between the 1990s and the 2000s. Those who chose the 1990s seem more like Historical Romance readers, while a number of those favoring the current decade have pointed [...]
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